<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">"many of us would not want things like that appearing all over the web"</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">The only way, in practice, to prevent that happening is to not</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">post it in the first place.  Let me offer a pre-internet anecdote.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><a book publisher> was thinking of getting into software publishing.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">One product they were thinking of distributing was</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><an AI programming language> from <a company>.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><a university> said "wait a minute, we gave <the company> a</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">non-commercial licence for <our implementation> and this</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">sounds a lot like our IP".</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">I was very familiar with the internals of <the university's</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">implementation>, so <the publisher> paid me to scrutinise the</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">source code of <the company's product> at <the company>'s</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">premises.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">I rather liked the people I met there,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">but while the kernel of the nut was their work,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">the shell and surrounding flesh definitely belonged to</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><the university>.  I recognised dozens of bugs that were</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">unique to <the university>'s product, because I had personally</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">fixed them, and they were not present in other implementations</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">of <the AI programming language>.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">So I wrote a report, confidential to the parties, stating</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">my findings, expressing my view that the programmers at</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><the company> were quite capable of replacing the copied bits</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">with original code of their own, but until they did, they</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">were definitely in violation of the agreement.  And because</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">I am a nice person, I slipped in praise for their debugger.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">So <the publisher> decided not to publish, <the company></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">withdrew their lawsuit (!) against <the university>, and</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">...</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">the next thing I knew, the advertising material for</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><the company>'s product quoted the debugger praise from</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">the confidential report, with my name on it!</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">So this is a textbook case of something appearing in public</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">that should not have, giving a seriously misleading</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">impression of what I thought of the product as a whole.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">What did I do?</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">Nothing except explain what really happened on a mailing</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">list dedicated to <the AI programming language>.<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">I didn't have the time or the money to sue.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">I've always taken it, as a practical matter, that anything</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">I send to any public e-venue, such as a mailing list, is as</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">public as if I had painted it on a wall.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">People with questions about code, both here and in several</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">other mailing lists I am on, take it for granted that they</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">must not post proprietary code, and go to the trouble of</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">constructing similar but distinct examples to ask about.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">So there is what the laws say (in various different countries,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">posting in NZ on a list held in SV information that might be</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">displayed in USA or UZB creates some interesting conflict of</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">laws questions) and there is what custom says.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">If joining the Erlang mailing list (or forum) required you</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">to say "anything I post may be quoted or used for any legal</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">purpose provided it is properly acknowledged", would anyone</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">actually refuse?  We are supposed to be helping each other</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">use an open source project, so what's wrong with open source</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace,monospace">discussions?<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, 17 Dec 2021 at 06:06, Mark Carroll <<a href="mailto:mtbc@ixod.org">mtbc@ixod.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">On 16 Dec 2021, Fred Youhanaie wrote:<br>
<br>
> I think keeping the mailing list for the rest of the community would be<br>
> worthwhile.<br>
<br>
Absolutely, then I can choose my own interface, read offline more<br>
easily, etc. - forums-by-mail does tend to be very much a second-class<br>
experience.<br>
<br>
-- Mark<br>
</blockquote></div>